Chris Farmer and I have an article in today’s Institutional Investor, summarizing the key findings from our research on deal sourcing: Would you invest in a company that only sold to 1 out of 80 leads? Or a company that typically took one year and 3 professionals just to close a single client? In fact,...
[Continue Reading]Goodbye Expert Networks, Hello Private Equity: Coverage from Integrity Research
Integrity Research wrote a nice blog post about the new startup I’m working on: "As more research providers emerge to analyze the public markets (there are now over 3,500 research providers in our database), one gap in the market are research providers for the private markets. David Teten, founder of the expert network Evalueserve Circle...
[Continue Reading]Venture Capitalists and the Upside-Down Pyramid
In response to my post on VC’s increasing use of operationally focused team members, HBS professor Noam Wasserman sent me an excerpt of his dissertation on ‘The Venture Capitalist as Entrepreneur: The Characteristics and Dynamics Within VC Firms’. A key point he makes in this paper is that, “Most strikingly, a large percentage of the...
[Continue Reading]How Private Equity and Venture Capital Funds Grow the Value of Portfolio Companies
One of the major themes of the evolution of the private equity industry for the past decade has been the growth of internal groups focused on enhancing the value of portfolio companies. Twenty years ago, the great majority of the people working in private equity came out of investment banking, i.e., a deal background. Today,...
[Continue Reading]Visiting Singapore April 23-29: Presenting to Founder Institute, Venture Capital & Private Equity Association, CFA Singapore, and others
I’m very excited to be visiting Singapore for the first time April 23-29; I may stay longer in Asia depending on business exigencies. I’m visiting as part of the faculty for the local launch of Founder Institute, with sponsorship from the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore and others. I will also be meeting with some...
[Continue Reading]Launch of Track.com, a market for independent Wall Street research
Four days ago, a team of Wall Street veterans launched Track.com, a new marketplace for independent research providers. I met with the management team today. Track.com offers independent research providers a platform to distribute their intellectual property. Buyers pay subscriptions for access to the pool of content. Similar to Value Investors Club, the general public...
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